


It Looks Like You

by ameliacareful



Series: Strangers and Brothers [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Dean is a firefighter, Eating Disorders, Gen, Sam is a Hunter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-11
Packaged: 2018-04-13 16:45:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4529493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ameliacareful/pseuds/ameliacareful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When one of Sam's friends from Palo Alto emails that her brother is in jail but he couldn't have committed the crime, Sam and Dean head to St. Louis to confront a shapeshifter.  Sam finally begins to open up to Dean.</p>
<p>Based on Episode s01e06 Skin (Shapeshifter)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Payphone

            Dean wondered what he was doing. Sam was in the passenger seat of the Impala. He no longer bothered to ask if Dean was going to let him drive. Dean had helped Sam kill a Woman in White, a wendigo, a ghost haunting a lake, had helped drive out a demon possessing people on planes, and confronted Bloody Mary. He’d resigned from his job in the fire department.

            Now he was standing in a gas station in the panhandle of Texas, a couple of hours from Tucumcari, New Mexico and lunch (which given the size of Tucumcari might well be gas station burritos.) Sam was filling the tank of the Impala. Dean was working up the nerve to call his girlfriend, Roni. During the day. When she couldn’t really talk. Because that’s the kind of guy he was.

            “Hi Roni,” he said when she picked up.

            “Dean?” she said and he could hear in her voice, hope and fear.

            “I’m okay,” he said. “Not arrested or anything.”

            “Where are you?” she asked and he could picture her at work, all serious. Roni wasn’t his type. She was rangy and athletic, brainy and not prone to wearing make-up. He could picture her combing her dark hair over her ear as she talked on the phone.

            They chit-chatted and he told her as much of the truth as he could, like he always did. He’d told her a little about a phone conversation he’d overheard his brother having with a family friend. That Sam didn’t expect to live to see thirty. Roni thought the family business was bounty hunting. “Has he opened up any more?” she asked.

            “No,” Dean said. “He’s not quite the raging asshole he was at first but he’s still locked down.”

            “When are you coming home?” she asked.

            I’m not. That’s what he should be saying, but he said, “I don’t know.”

            “I talked to my therapist,” Roni said.

            Dean closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the metal side of the phone booth, which wasn’t really a phone booth so much as a phone shade. “Yeah?” he said.

            “I told her about your brother, even showed her the picture you sent of you and him.” Roni gave a funny laugh. “You know how you always tell me that I got past all your defenses? That I wasn’t some blond bimbo like you always picked up? Dr. Litman pointed out that I kind of look like Sam. A girl version of Sam. Only more like probably the twelve year old version, not the big guy.”

            Dean didn’t know what to say. He had never thought of it, of course. Roni wasn’t anything like Sam. Roni was a girl. She was a grown-up. She worked in an insurance agency.

            Sam had gone in to pay and pick up snacks.

            “I can’t compete with the real thing, Dean,” Roni said. “Whatever fucked up thing is going on between you and your brother.”

            “I’m not… what if he manages to get himself killed?” Dean said. “I’ve just got to make sure he’s all right. Get him settled, get him some help.”

            Roni didn’t say anything.

            “I’ll call you, babe,” Dean said. “I love you.”

            “I know, sweetie,” Roni said. She sounded like she was going to cry.

            Dean felt like shit when he hung up.

            Sam came back out and dropped a bag of road food on the seat of the Impala. It would be mostly stuff for Dean; Sam ate weirder and weirder. He ate like he had some sort of work out diet. He carried a little notebook and everything.

            Jesus, he had just maybe broken up with his girlfriend and he was obsessing about Sam. Had Roni broken up with him? Not exactly, but he could feeling it coming, like the way the air cooled before a storm. He should call her back and tell her it was okay, that he understood. But that would be the wrong thing to do. He wasn’t sure why, he just knew it was because if there was one thing he was sure of it was that just about anything he said was going to be the wrong thing.

            Sam had a Palm Pilot. He checked email on it and scribbled notes in it that he later wrote in a journal. Not Dad’s journal.

            “Everything okay?” Sam asked. Sam knew who he was calling.

            “Yeah. What’re you doing?”

            “Reading emails,” Sam said.

            “Emails from who?” It wasn’t like Sam talked to people.

            “Friends from Stanford.”

            “You’re kidding,” Dean said. “You have friends? You never even went to school there.”

            “I lived there on and off for a couple of years,” Sam said casually. “Between hunts.”

            “Well, what exactly do you tell ‘em? You know, about where you’ve been, what you’ve been doin’?”

            “Right now, I tell ‘em I’m on a road trip with my big brother,” Sam said. “I tell ‘em I needed some time after Jess.”

            “Oh, so you lie to ‘em,” Dean said.

            Sam finally looked up. “Of course.”

            “I get it,” Dean said, “tellin’ the truth is far worse. It’s better than just cutting everybody out of your life.”

            “That turned out to be wrong,” Sam said and went back to deleting emails.

            “You’re serious?” Dean said.

            “Look, it sucks, but in a job like this, you can’t have friends.”

            “You’re kind of anti-social, you know that?” Dean said.

            “How long have we spent in that car together and you’re just figuring that out?” Sam said. Then he read something that made his posture change. “God…”

            “What?” Dean said, thinking maybe it was Dad, although Dad probably never emailed anybody in his life.

            "In this e-mail from this girl, Rebecca Warren, one of those _friends_ of mine.”

            “Is she hot?” Dean said, lifting the big brother eyebrow.

            Sam didn’t bother to respond. “She and her brother, Zack, they were both at Stanford. She says Zack’s been charged with murder. He’s been arrested for killing his girlfriend. Rebecca says he didn’t do it, but it sounds like the cops have a pretty good case.”

            First Adderall, now this.   “Dude, what kind of people are you hanging out with?”

            Sam shook his head. “No, I know Zack. He’s no killer. No drugs, no nothing. Total civilian.”

            “Well,” Dean pointed out, “maybe you know Zack as well as he knows you.”

            Sam gave him a look. “Everybody knew I was fucked up.   They just respected my privacy about what, how, and why. They’re in St. Louis.” He opened the passenger door of the Impala.

            “Look, this does not sound like our kind of problem,” Dean said. If he interferes with a police investigation then there is no going back to the fire department.

            “When we get there, I’ll need the car,” Sam said. “We’ll find you a hotel. Or if you want, I can put you on a plane back to Greeley until this get sorted.”

            “No,” Dean said.

            “Sorry,” Sam said, “A bus or something. Rent you a car. Whatever.”

#

            Dean didn’t know which had him more weirded out, that Sam actually had friends or that he had plans to cut them off. (Yeah, well Dean realized he was dumping his girlfriend who might just be some fucked up version of his little brother. At least Jess had looked sort of like mom. Girls were supposed to fall in love with some version of their fathers, boys with their mothers.)

            They headed for St. Louis.

            Sam’s friends lived in a giant ass house. A really giant ass house that screamed money. Dean prepared himself for Sam’s friends to be giant douches because even though six months ago he would have said Sam would never have friends who were giant douches, two weeks ago he would have said Sam really didn’t have friends and honestly, half the time Sam was a giant douche but the door opened and Dean decided it didn’t matter what Sam’s friend was because she was blond and drop dead gorgeous.

            Her face lit up and she said, “Oh my God, Sam!”

            And Sam’s face went kind of gooey-happy and he said, “Well, if it isn’t little Becky.”

            “You know what you can do with that little Becky crap,” she said and Sam just enfolded her in a big gorilla of a hug.

            “I got your email,” he said, all serious.

            “I didn’t think you’d come here,” she said.

            Dean decided he wasn’t going to be a wallflower and stepped forward, hand out. “Dean,” he said. “Older brother.”

            Rebecca’s eyes flicked up to Sam and then to Dean. She hadn’t known about an older brother. “Hi,” she said, all warmth and welcome.

            “Hi,” he said, projecting as much ‘I’m completely nice and not as crazy as my brother full of secrets’ as he could.

            “We’re here to help. Whatever we can do,” Sam said.

            The inside of the house was even nicer than the outside. Tasteful but not like you couldn’t sit on the furniture tasteful and not a single threat of bodily fluid stains on any of the furniture. No Ikea stuff, either. “Nice place,” Dean said.

            “It’s my parents’,” Rebecca said. “I was just crashing here for the long weekend when everything happened. I decided to take the semester off. I’m gonna stay until Zack’s free.”

            “Where are your folks?” Sam asked. Sam acted…twenty-two. Normal. Human instead of all Mr. Spock.

            “They live in Paris for half the year, so they’re on their way home now for the trial.” She said it like everybody’s parents lived in Paris half the year. “Do you guys want a beer or something?”

            “Hey—” Dean said.

            Sam cut him off. “No, thanks. So, tell us what happened.” Okay, so under the appearance of normal humanity, still an asshole.

            “Well, um, Zack came home, and he found Emily tied to a chair,” Rebecca said. “And she was beaten up and bloody, and she wasn’t breathing.” Her eyes welled up. Dean wanted to say it was okay but Sam just stood there looking sympathetic but letting her talk. “So, he called 911, and the police—they showed up, and they arrested him. But, the thing is, the only way that Zack could’ve killed Emily is if he was in two places at the same time. The police—they have a video. It’s from the security tape from across the street. And it shows Zack coming home at 10:30. Now, Emily was killed just after that, but I swear, he was here with me, having a few beers until at least after midnight.”

            Sam nodded, eyes down for a minute and Dean could just imagine the circuit boards heating up. “You know, maybe we could see the crime scene. Zack’s house.”

            Rebecca looked a little surprised.

            Dean nodded. “We could.”

            “Why?” she asked. “I mean, what could you do?”

            “Well, me, not much,” Sam said. “But Dean’s a cop.”

            Startled, Dean laughed. Of course it made sense. They would know Sam wasn’t a cop. “Detective, actually,” he said. No way he was going to be a uniform.

            “Really?” she said.

            Dean nodded.

            “Where?” she asked.

            “Bisbee, Arizona,” he said. It just popped out, first place he thought of. “But I’m off-duty now.”

            He’d seen Sam do this enough. Hell, he’d seen his Dad do it. She wavered a bit and then they went to Zack’s. It was kind of fun being an officer of the law to Sam’s lowly ‘I’m just a friend.’ They ducked under the crime scene tape and went inside. Rebecca followed them. Dean wanted to stop her—the walls and furniture were spattered with blood.

            She had very little to tell them. Someone had broken in a week before but all they had taken was some clothes. The dog next door had started barking like crazy at everyone and it didn’t used to be like that.

            Sam stood looking at a photo of Becky and some guy—probably Zack—and Sam. They were all doing the arms over the shoulders kind of thing, looking young and happy. Looking at it, Sam was doing the empty stare.

            “So, the neighbor’s dog went psycho right around the time Zack’s girlfriend was killed,” Dean said.

            “Animals can have a sharp sense of the paranormal,” Sam said. He looked at Dean. Dean wanted to say, ‘why does she get a person and I get a zombie?’

            Rebecca said she’d stolen a copy of the surveillance tape off Zack’s lawyer’s desk. So they all headed back to her house.

            On the tape, Zack walked up to the house. It was the guy in the photo. It was Zack. He glanced up at the surveillance camera and his eyes were silver. Lens flare. Maybe. Or something else.

            Maybe their kind of case.


	2. Breakfast 24 Hours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam won't eat at a greasy spoon AND hates Sewers. Not for the same reasons.

*     *      *

      Sam was tense. Well, he thought that Sam was tense. Sam got into the Impala and slid on the sunglasses and Terminator Sam was back in force the moment they left Rebecca’s.

      “Want to get something to eat?” Dean asked.

      “No,” Sam said.

      “Well, I do,” Dean said. Because they were in St. Louis and they could eat something better than gas station burritos. Which were great, sometimes.

     “Hard being back around you and Jess’s friends, I guess,” Dean said.

     Sam didn’t say anything.

     Okay, Dean thought. Should have known that would go over like a cement block in a swimming pool. He got out of Rebecca’s parent’s fancy neighborhood and cruised for awhile, looking for something other than chain restaurants and places with ferns. Instinct took him in towards St. Louis. He saw a sign that said _Breakfast 24 Hours_ and turned into the parking lot. It was safe, he figured. It would have a huge menu, adequate food, it would be cheap. He parked.

     “I’ll wait here,” Sam said, pulling out his palm pilot.

     “What the hell,” Dean said. “You gotta eat, man. Get your dumb little notebook and get your ass in there. They’ll have chicken breast and wilted broccoli.”

     “No thanks, mom,” Sam said.

     Jesus Christ on a STICK. “If you didn’t act like a child—”

     “I’M NOT EATING AT ANOTHER PLACE LIKE THIS!”

     At least Sam showed some emotion. Even with sunglasses Dean could see some emotion.

     “You decide where we eat,” Sam said with clenched teeth. “You pick the hotels. You took over the car. ‘Driver picks the music and shotgun shuts his cakehole’. You decide what’s on TV. You tell me I drink too much. I DIDN’T ASK YOU TO COME WITH ME.”

     Yeah, but. It was just being a guy. Dean kept expecting Sam to push back, to get a little, well, fun about it. Like the guys at the fire station would have.

     “Um…you want to drive?” Dean said.

     “What difference does it make,” Sam said. “It’s your car anyway.”

     Dean thought, a lot, obviously, and then Sam said—”

     “Dad put the car in your name on your eighteenth birthday.”

     They’d pulled of a main drag and Dean was suddenly acutely aware of the sound of traffic. A motorcycle gunned by, loud as anything. Dean didn’t understand what Sam had said for a moment. Then he thought, dad wasn’t at his eighteenth birthday. Linda, his foster parent, had thrown him a party and a couple of friends from his senior year of high school had come over. Then he realized Sam meant on the date of his eighteenth birthday, dad must have transferred the title of the Impala into his name. And, Sam had just said ‘Dad’ instead of ‘John.’ Jesus, what kind of slap in the face had that been to Sam?

     While he was standing there trying to sort through all the implications, Sam popped the glove box open and rooted around. He pulled out the cigar box full of fake IDs, a bunch of fake insurance papers and fake registrations, and under that an envelope with Dad’s handwriting on it. It said ‘Title’.

     Inside was the Car Title. The real one. To Dean Winchester.

     “That stupid fucker,” Dean said.

     “You can have the Impala,” Sam said. “But I’m not eating here. Not for you or anyone else. Go get some God-awful grease bomb. I’ll have something later.”

     “Sam,” Dean said.

     “Shut the fuck up,” Sam said, “or so help me, as soon as we get this thing sorted out with Becky and Zack, I’m walking and this time you will never find me again.”

     Yeah. Sam was tense.

#

     Dean ate. He thought briefly about getting Sam something to go but even if he’d known what, he thought, well, sleeping dogs and letting them lie and all that. When he came back, Sam was still on his Palm Pilot although it was impossible to imagine that he’d had enough to keep him busy while Dean ate.

     “Where next?” Dean asked. Sam was still in the passenger seat. Should he ask Sam if he wanted to drive? No.

     “Back to Zacks,” Sam said. To check what else they could find and down the street there was a cluster of cop cars, lights on, cops standing around with their hands on their hips looking the way cops do when there are way more of them than there are things to do. They walked down and watched a guy in handcuffs loaded into the back of a squad car.

     Dean managed to get to the first cop on the scene. Firefighters spend a lot of time around cops and truth to be told, there were some guys he liked. He pretended to himself that this guy was one of them.

     Sam waited well back behind the onlooker standing around on the sidewalk talking to each other. The ‘he seemed-like-such-a-nice-guy crowd. “What’d you find out?” Sam asked.

     “Well, I just talked to the patrolman who was first on the scene, heard this guy, Alex’s story,” Dean said. “Apparently the dude was driving home from a business trip when his wife was attacked.”

     “So, he was two places at once,” Sam said, nodding. Sam was acting like he hadn’t just gone all dark side in the parking lot of a greasy spoon.

     “Exactly,” If Sam could, Dean could act perfectly normal, too. Hell, it was the Winchester way. “Then he sees himself in the house, police think he’s a nutjob.”

     “Shapeshifter?” Sam mused. “Skinwalker maybe?”

Dean figured this was what Sam did. Figure out the lore.

     “I picked up a trail here.” Sam said. “Someone ran out the back of this building and headed off this way.

     “Just like your friend’s house,” Dean said.

     “Yeah. And, just like at Zack’s house, the trail suddenly ends,” Sam said. “I mean, whatever it is just disappeared.”

     Dean glanced around and then noticed something. “Well, there’s another way to go—down,” Dean said. At their feet was a manhole cover.

     “Fuck,” Sam said. “I hate sewers.”

     He said this as if he spoke from experience. Dean raised an eyebrow.

     “Also storm drains, culverts,” Sam added.

     “You claustrophobic, Sammy?”

     “It’s Sam, and no.” Dean remembered that the last time he’d called his brother ‘Sammy’ they’d been sparing while on their way to Mexico. And Sam had put him on his back without blinking. At least this time he hadn’t done that. Progress in the relationship, no doubt.

     Manholes were a bitch to remove. They were heavy, sometimes sealed with asphalt. But once they were popped it was easy to climb down and the sewer here was spacious. Main sewer line or something. Walking around room. Smelled not to bad. Not great but could have been worse.

     “I bet this runs right by Zack’s house, too,” Sam said. “The shapeshifter could be using the sewer system to get around.”

     Dean was looking around. “I think you’re right. Look at this.” He pointed to something that looked like wet chicken skin except without the bumpies and some blood. Dean was pleased to see that Sam wrinkled his nose in distaste. Sam was usually so busy being a badass.

     Dean took out his pocketknife and stuck the point and held up some of the skin.

     “Is this from his victims?” Sam said. Although it was clear he didn’t think that made sense.

     Dean had seen accident victims, injuries, people electrocuted, scalded, run over, bodies found in bathtubs a week after they died... This looked almost like a set of…clothes. “You know,” Dean said, “I just had a sick thought. When the shapeshifter changes shape—maybe it sheds.”

     “That is sick,” Sam said, drawing away a little.

     Dean let the stuff slide off his knife onto the ground with a little slick slap.

     They needed weapons and flashlights. Dean remembered they needed silver even before he saw Sam reach for the box of silver bullets. Silver bullets were tarnished dark and felt different in his hand. Sam cast them himself and now he parceled them out, a full clip for Dean, less for himself.

     “Hey,” Dean said.

     “Stay alive,” Sam said. “Next time you’ll get fewer.”

     Then Rebecca called and told them she’d talked to her lawyer. Her lawyer had checked Dean out. She knew he wasn’t a police officer.

     Dean expected Sam to be hurt. Sam just hung up the phone, put his 9mm in the back of his jeans where he liked to carry it, and grabbed a flashlight.


	3. Sewer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I think we’re close to it’s lair,” Sam said.
> 
> “How come?”
> 
> Sam nodded his head at something.
> 
> Dean turned and saw another puke inducing pile of skin and blood on a pipe near his face. “That is so wrong,” he said.
> 
> The sewer widened out into a room, maybe for maintenance workers. There was a pile of discarded clothing there. Hell of a place to live, Dean thought. “Looks like he’s lived here for awhile.”
> 
> “It,” Sam said. “They can assume both genders.”
> 
> God forbid Dean not be politically correct about the genders of shapeshifters.

 

*     *     *

            If Sam hated sewers, Dean wouldn’t have known it by the way he acted. Sam moved easy, gun and flaslight out. Dean listened but sound carried strangely. Sam was so intent. A predator, Dean thought. Watching for movement.

            “I think we’re close to it’s lair,” Sam said.

            “How come?”

            Sam nodded his head at something.

            Dean turned and saw another puke inducing pile of skin and blood on a pipe near his face. “That is so wrong,” he said.

            The sewer widened out into a room, maybe for maintenance workers. There was a pile of discarded clothing there. Hell of a place to live, Dean thought. “Looks like he’s lived here for awhile.”

            “It,” Sam said. “They can assume both genders.”

            God forbid Dean not be politically correct about the genders of shapeshifters. Sam was a geek. He turned slowly, taking it in. Sam glanced back at him and beyond Sam, Dean saw the Asian guy they had seen arrested.

            “SAM!”

            Sam turned in time to get punched in the stomach by the shifter. He folded and went to his knees and the shifter ran. Dean fired twice over Sam but was pretty sure he didn’t get it. He touched Sam’s shoulder but Sam was already getting to his feet.

            “Gotta stop it,” Sam said, and they were running.

            Running through a sewer by the light of a flashlight turned out to be not much fun. The shapeshifter went up the first ladder it found. The thing must have been strong—it popped the manhole cover. Or maybe it had made sure that some of them were already loose. Dean was glad he hadn’t been punched in the gut. Sam swarmed up the ladder and Dean followed him.

            They were on a street. No sign of the shapeshifter.

            “How the…it can look like anybody,” Dean said.

            “Shifting takes a moment,” Sam said, “and eats up energy. Split up.” He pointed to an alley. He meant meet around the block.

            “I’ll meet you around the other side,” Dean said.

            As soon as he started walking it occurred to him that was probably stupid. Split up. If there was anything he had ever learned from horror movies it was that you never split up. He tried to keep his gun mostly out of sight but a guy saw it and looked freaked. What, he never saw a gun before?

            He got to the street corner with ought seeing sign of Asian guy.

            Sam came down the alley looking a little pissed. “See anything?” Sam asked.

            “No,” Dean said.

            “Okay,” Sam said, “Lets get back to the car.”

            “You think he found another way underground?” Dean asks. How could they have a missed him?

            “ Yeah, probably,” Sam said. “You got the keys?” Of course Dean had the keys. He turned around. Sam knew that. Sam bitched that Dean wouldn’t even let him drive the car. Dean’d been reading Dad’s journal, trying to catch up.

            “Hey, didn’t Dad once face a shapeshifter in San Antonio?” Dean asked.

            “Austin. It turned out not to be a shapeshifter,” Sam said. “It was a thought form. A psychic projection.” So easy.         

            “Oh, right. Here ya go,” Dean tossed the keys and turned to walk.  It was the right answer but Sam was never easy. He heard the shapeshifter open the trunk behind him. Dean turned back. “Don’t move.” He had his gun pulled. The thing had Sam somewhere. It turned and looked at him and it’s forehead got that funny wrinkle between the eyebrows that Sam’s did but it wasn’t Sam. “Where is he?”    

           “Dude, chill. It’s me, all right?” It sounded so much like Sam.

           “Fuck me, asshole. Where’s my brother?

           The Sam thing flicked an eyebrow, and that totally looked like Terminator Sam, “You’re about to shoot him. Calm down.”

           “You caught those keys with your left,” Dean said. “You’re not a lefty.”

           “You threw them to my left,” the Sam thing said.

           “You’re not my brother,” Dean growled, trying to convince himself.  His gut said, _not Sammy._   But maybe he was just jumpy.  And the cost of being wrong...

           “Then pull the trigger, Dean.” Sam sighed like he didn’t really care if Dean shot him or not.

           Dean thought that totally sounded like Sam.

           “Dude, you know me,” Sam turned his back on him and reached into the trunk.

           “Don’t,” Dean warned.

           The crowbar caught him in the side of the head.

#

 

            The first thing Dean noticed was that the room was dry. Dusty and dingy but not damp like the lair. The second thing he noticed is that he was tied up around his neck which was really uncomfortable. Given that he hated ties. It was a lot worse than ties. His hands were bound behind him to something wooden. His head hurt. He felt sick. He was probably concussed. He took a moment to listen to the blood pound in his ears and figure out what he could which was pretty much nothing.

            He opened his eyes and the Sam thing walked over and backhanded him.

            Holy fucking mother of God that was awful. He moaned. It was embarrassing but he did it. He wondered how long he’d been out. Too long if he’d been moved. He tried to concentrate on what was going on and not think about hematomas and fractures.

            “Where is he? Where’s Sam?” He asked.

            The shapeshifter crouched in front of him which was nice because Sam had gotten so damn tall and with his neck tied it sucked to try to look up. “I wouldn’t worry about him. I’d worry about you.”

            Dean tried to think of something to say and could only come up with, “Where is he?” Which was pretty repititious.

            The shapeshifter wasn’t bothering with Sam expressions. It was weird to see not Sam expressions on Sam’s face. “You don’t really wanna know.” It chuckled. “I swear, the more I learn about you and your family—I thought I came from a bad background.”

            That got through. It was learning about…huh? “ What do you mean, learn?”

            The shapeshifter stood up. It grabbed its head an grimaced and for a moment it rocked, then it relaxed and looked at Dean. “He’s sure got issues with you. You got to go to college. He had to stay home. I mean, I had to stay home. I had a full ride to Stanford. But then I got messed up in a hunt, spent a chunk of the end of August of what should have been my Freshman year in a hospital. _John_ needed me. And you never came back. You left me with him and he never let me forget that I wasn’t you. I _hated_ hunting.”

            Dean couldn’t let the thing get to him. This was old news. He had abandoned Sam, he knew that. He _knew_ that. “Where is my brother?”

            The shapeshifter leaned in close to Dean. Sam’s eyes, wide and slightly tilted, the eyes that Dean had recognized when he recognized nothing else about Sam after twelve years. “I am your brother. See, deep down, I’m just jealous. You got a home. A girlfriend. A job. You could have a life. Me? I know I’m a monster. And sooner or later I’ll turn into whatever the fuck I’m supposed to turn into and John’s going to track me down and shoot me.”

           “What are you talking about?” Dean asked, chilled.

           “John asked Bobby to research what I was. What was wrong with me. I have visions, big bro. I saw Jess’s death and didn’t do anything about it. But still, this life? Good for a monster. I meet the nicest people. Like little Becky. She wouldn’t know a monster if it showed up in her living room. Let’s see what happens.”

            The shapeshifter smiled and straightened up. He picked up a sheet and covered Dean like he was a piece of furniture.

#

            Dean tried to get out of the ropes. He’d gotten the sheet mostly off and it pooled half on the floor next to him. He’d been working for awhile. Ropes weren’t as easy to get out of as handcuffs but they were better than zipties. Someone coughed. “That better be you, Sam, and not that freak of nature.”

            Sam laughed, the nut job. “Yeah, it’s me. Where’s the shapeshifter?”

            “He went to Rebecca’s, looking like you. Don’t know why he didn’t go looking like me. God knows he should have picked the better looking brother.”

            “Fuck,” Sam said, pithily. “Hold on, soon as the room stops moving I’ll be able to get free.”

            Concussion, Contussion, Coup-Contrecoup Injury, Diffuse Axonal Injury, possible skull fracture, hematoma. They needed a CT scan… No sense in worrying about it now. “Who’s president of the United States, Sammy?”

            “Josiah Bartlett. And it’s Sam.”

            “In your dreams, you left wing freak.” Dean grinned. He was pretty sure he could get out of his ropes before Sam got out of his. “Keep talking, we both got head injuries and if one of us starts to slur, the other should know about it.”

            It was hard to keep Sam talking. Not because of the head injury but because he just didn’t appear to want to talk.

            “So the thing said it was you,” Dean finally said.

            “Yeah,” Sam said, clearly unimpressed.

            “No, that’s the thing. He didn’t just look like you, he was you. Or he was becoming you.” Dean felt the rope finally fray and stretch enough he could slide a hand out.

            “What do you mean?”

            “Like,” Dean pulled the rope off from around his neck, “like the Vulcan mind meld.” He stood up slowly.

            “Like he could download my thoughts and memories? Maybe that’s why he doesn’t just kill us.”

          Dean could finally see Sam who was tied up so he couldn’t see Dean.   Dean knelt down and got the rope from around Sam’s neck. He checked Sam’s pupils but it was really too dark to see well.

            “Hands,” Sam said.

            “Maybe he needs to keep us alive. Psychic connection.” The ropes typing Sam’s wrists were tight. Dean got them off then ran his fingers over Sam’s head, checking for injury.

            “Come on, we gotta go,” Sam said. “He’s probably at Rebecca’s already. Stop being all EMT,” Sam batted Dean’s hands away.

            “We should call the cops,” Dean said.

            Sam narrowed his eyes. “You’re going to put out an APB on me?”

            Dean shrugged. “Sorry, dude.”

 


	4. It's Inconvient

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Sam,” Dean said, catching up. “You’re wanted for fucking murder.”
> 
> Sam turned down an alley. “We’ll check with Rebecca in the morning, see how she is.”
> 
> “So you’re just fine with this?”
> 
> “It’s inconvenient,” Sam said.

*      *       *

            Sam had his hoodie up, which was a good thing because as they passed an appliance shop with a display of TVs in the window, there he was onscreen. “Whoa,” Dean said, grabbing his brother’s arm. It was a photo of Sam looking all collegiate, obviously from the photo in Zack’s house (only with Zack and Rebecca cropped out.) Sam on various sized TVs, the smiling, dimpled, killer. The captions said, ‘An anonymous tip led police to a home in the Central West End, where a S.W.A.T team discovered a local woman bound and gagged. Her attacker, a white male, approximately twenty-four to thirty years of age, was discovered hiding in her home.’ They stood a minute or two longer, watching the captions and the crawl.

            “At least we know it didn’t kill her,” Sam said and started walking again.

            “Sam,” Dean said, catching up. “You’re wanted for fucking murder.”

            Sam turned down an alley. “We’ll check with Rebecca in the morning, see how she is.”

            “So you’re just fine with this?”

            “It’s inconvenient,” Sam said.

            “We’ve got to get the shapeshifter, prove it wasn’t you,” Dean said.

            Sam stopped. Dean noticed abstractly that Sam was standing in a puddle. “Oh, right. We’ll capture the shapeshifter, take him to a police station, explain what he is, and while we’re there we’ll explain about werewolves and vampires and demons.” Sam looked amused.

            “Yes,” Dean said. “Better than having you wanted for murder.”

            “Attempted murder,” Sam corrected. “Also, we have no weapons. No silver bullets.”

            “Sam, the guy’s walking around with your face, okay?” Dean pointed out. “It’s a little personal. I want to find him.”

            “Okay. Where do we look?”

            Dean felt the irrational urge to punch his brother. “Are you sure you aren’t the shifter?”

            “I guess it really matters more that you’re sure,” Sam said.

            “Fuck you,” Dean said. “Well, we could start with the sewers.”

            Sam looked off in the distance. Since he probably wasn’t studying the dumpsters, he was obviously thinking. “We have no weapons. He stole our guns, we need more. The car?”

            Where would the Impala be?   “I’m betting he drove over to Rebecca’s,” Deansaid.

            “The news said he fled on foot. I bet it’s still parked there.”

            The asshole had been driving the Impala. “The thought of him driving my car…”

            Sam’s eyebrow arched. “Your car?”

            Dean ignored him. “It’s killing me.”

            The Impala was, in fact, at Rebecca’s, sitting sweet and pretty, parked. Nice neighborhood, Dean thought. Better than the car was used to.

 

            But as they walked to it, so were a couple of uniformed cops. Dean told Sam to run. The cops couldn’t hold Dean for more than twenty-four hours, they had nothing on him. Sam came quietly behind him, still in the shadow of the side of the house. Which turned out to be a good thing when a squad car pulled into the driveway and parked next to the Impala.

            “Fuck,” Dean said.

            A second cruiser pulled in behind.

            Dean ran, “Go, go go go,” he hissed.

            Sam was already halfway over the privacy fence to the next yard.

            “I’ll hold them off,” Dean whispered.

            “What?” Sam looked at him as if he was crazy.

            Sam looked pretty hysterical, halfway over the fence. Like a kid caught after curfew. “They can’t hold me more than twenty-four hours,” Dean said. “They’ve got nothing on me.”

            Sam still didn’t move. “GO! Meet me at Rebecca’s. And stay out of the sewers alone!”

            Sam grimaced and dropped.

            “Sam! I mean it,” Dean hissed at the fence.

            From the other side of the fence he heard a quiet, “Bite me.”

            He was about to yell at his brother when the beam of a flashlight pinned him. “Don’t move! Keep your hands where I can see ‘em! Back to me!”

            Fuckity fuck fuck. Did Dean look like some gangbanger on the LA freeway for God’s sake? He turned his back to the cops, feet wide and slowly, slowly put his hands down on the grass. Nice grass, he thought. Then he lay down on his belly, arms and legs spread-eagled. Nice wet, dewy grass.

            The cop cam over, Dean was sure the gun was still trained on him.

            “Friend of Becky’s, officer,” Dean said. “No intention of moving unless you say so.”

            “Good,” the cop said. He grabbed on hand and then the other and zip-tied Dean’s wrists. At least, Dean thought, he hadn’t shot him.

#

            To Dean’s surprise, Rebecca vouched for him without mentioning he was Sam’s brother.

            She led him back into the house, into the kitchen and sit him at the kitchen island on a kitchen stool. His shoulders ached, his wrists ached, his head ached from earlier. “You want a beer?” she asked.

            “Yeah,” he said, grateful. “Why are you doing this?”

            “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe it’s a chance to get to the bottom of the great Sam mystery. Why did you pretend to be a cop?”

            “Rule number one of the family business,” Dean said. “Roll with it.” The beer was cold and welcome. “Sam said, ‘My brother is a cop,’ so I pretended to be a cop.”

            “What is the family business?”

            Dean sighed. “You’re not going to believe me.”

            Rebecca shrugged. “Someone beat me up. They looked like Sam but they weren’t. They even told me they weren’t.”

            Dean was surprised. “It’s a shapeshifter. It’s what killed Emily and it looked like your brother Zack when it did. I wonder why it would tell you?” He took another long pull on his beer.

            “It knew all about Sam and someone else, John?”

            “My dad,” Dean said. “They’re both hunters.”

            “But it didn’t know about you.” She cocked her head. “How come no one has heard about you?” She got up and got another beer. Dean realized his was already empty.

            “I was out of the life. I was a working as a firefighter in Colorado. Then Sam showed up and then Jessica died and I didn’t want him out there alone.”

            “How do you kill a shapeshifter? You know this all sounds crazy?” Rebecca replaced his empty with another.

            “Thanks,” Dean said. “I should probably slow down. Been hit on the head.   You kill a shapeshifter with a silver bullet to the heart.”

            “Wow,” she said, and hit him over the head with the empty beer bottle.

            It didn’t put him out because he saw it coming and managed to get part way out of the way but it rang his clock enough to knock him off the stool and on to his hands and knees. She was on him in an instant, before he could clear his head, tying his hands behind him. He tried to kick out but she grabbed his ankles. She was inhumanly strong and that was when his battered brain realized she was the shifter.

            And he was lying on his side on the kitchen floor like he’d lost a calf roping exhibition. “What are you going to do to me?” Dean asked.

            “I’m not going to do anything,” she said. “But Sam will. Murder in the first of his own brother? He’ll be hunted the rest of his life.”

            She trussed him up and then walked behind him. A slither of clothes coming off and then some drawers opening and closing. He heard her groan. It started female and then descended through the octaves and there was that slap of empty flesh hitting the tile. Clothes again. Then a strong hand grabbed him and lifted him off the floor like he was luggage and carried him into the living room and dropped him on the carpet. He saw his brother’s boots and jeans and looking up, way way up, his brother’s face.

            “I must say, I will be sorry to lose this skin. Your brother’s got a lot of good qualities. You should appreciate him more than you do,” Not Sam said. He picked up a bottle of something that looked like whiskey from the bar cart and poured himself a couple of fingers. “Cheers.” He took a sip and made a gentle appreciative noise. The he picked up a knife from out of Dean’s vision and stuck it in end edge of the pool table. Which offended Dean on several counts. One that it was a lousy way to treat a nice pool table. The other that the shifter seemed to be assuming that trussed up, Dean was no longer dangerous. Dean lefted his legs and kicked the shifter hard enough to knock him off balance. Dean was on his knees, sawing the ropes around his wrists—the knife was well sharpened, thank whatever passed for God these days. The rope parted, Dean grabbed the knife, and as the shifter got his feet under him, Dean swung at him.

            The shapeshifter grabbed Deans arm in mid-swing and twisted and holy mother the asshole was strong. Dean went down.

            “Oh, you son of a bitch,” the shifter said.

            Dean grabbed and pulled the shifter onto the floor, trying to pin him.

            “Not bad, big brother,” Not Sam said.

            “I always kicked your ass when we were training,” Dean said and tried to slam him into the floor.

            The problem was the shifter knew all Sam’s moves and Sam seemed to know all Dean’s moves. The shifter hauled him up and threw him into a bookcase. Dean went down in a shower of books.

            “We’re not kids anymore,” Not Sam said and grinned. “Now I kick yours, remember?” He grabbed a pool cue and swung at Dean who ducked. The light fixture shattered. The shapeshifter lunged pinned Dean to the floor, pool cue across his throat.

            Dean saw white spots. And heard someone shout, “Hey!”

            The shapeshifter looked up and for a crazy moment there were two Sams. One of them with a 9mm. The one on top of Dean, Not Sam, leaped up and it was as if he was leaping into Sam’s shot. He went back down, flat.

            Dean levered himself up on his elbows.

            Rebecca was coming up behind Sam and he saw her see the body first, and her eyes widen, then realize who the broad expanse of shoulders in front of her was. Dean was glad she couldn’t see Sam’s face because there wasn’t any emotion on it.

            “Sam?” she said.

            Sam tucked the gun away and did a funny tiny shapeshift of his own, becoming the guy she knew, earnest, collegiate, not a killer, and only then did he turn and hold out his arms and let her hug him back.


	5. We Should Send Flowers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So what did you eat when you were driving solo?”
> 
> “Grocery store stuff. Take out salads. Power bars.” Sam’s voice was so, so quiet.
> 
> “Bourbon,” Dean supplied.
> 
> That got a little laugh. “I didn’t know we were talking about medication.”

*     *      *

            Maybe it wasn’t a shapeshift, Dean thought. Maybe Sam was both the nice friend of Rebecca and the guy who could kill a shifter without a thought. He could feel it in himself. Sometimes he felt like Dean Winchester, firefighter, normal guy. Sometimes he felt himself perfectly capable of killing. He’d killed a werewolf when he was fourteen, not six months before his dad threw him out. He’d been perfectly capable of killing that shifter.

            On this sunny day, outside Rebecca’s house, pretending to look at a map while Rebecca and Sam did the good bye thing, it was easy to think that he and Sam were normal people. Not the kind of people whose parents go to Paris for six months of the year, maybe, but a kind of normal. Beer and nice enough to invite over for dinner normal.

            “So, this is what you do? You and your brother—you hunt down these kinds of things?” she was asking Sam.

            “Yeah, pretty much,” Sam said.

            “I can’t believe it. I mean, I saw it with my own eyes. And, I mean, does everybody Palo Alto—nobody knows that you do this?”

            Sam shook his head.

            “Did Jessica know?”

            Dean glanced at Sam.  Did Jess know?

            “No, she didn’t.” Sam didn’t look like someone just stabbed him by mentioning Jess or as if he was thinking that she got killed because of him, so that was good.

            “Must be lonely.”

            “It’s not so bad,” Sam said.

            “Well, you know, Zack and me, and everybody at school—we really miss you,” Rebecca said and did that on tiptoe thing that girls always did when they hugged a tall guy even though Sam bent down. “Well, will you call sometime?”

            “It might not be for a little while. Remember, I’m supposed to be dead.”

            Rebecca wrinkled her nose and then nodded. She waved goodbye to Dean.

            Sam did the long fall to the passenger seat.

            “So, what about your friend, Zack?” Dean asked.

            “Cops are blaming this Sam Winchester guy for Emily’s murder. They found the murder weapon in the guy’s lair, Zack’s clothes stained with her blood. Now they’re thinking maybe the surveillance tape was tampered with. Yeah, Becca says Zack will be released soon.”

            Sam smiled like that was a good thing. Dean thought about saying how much that sucked but there was nothing to say and Sam wouldn’t like him making a deal out of it anyway.

            They pulled out and let the Impala find it’s way down fancy neighborhood streets. The Interstate until just out of town, then Dean found a highway.

            He glanced at Sam who was watching out the window. He wondered about the inevitable post-hunt crash. Right now felt okay. Maybe even okay to say something.

            “I really wish things could be different, you know? I wish you could just be….Joe College,” Dean said.

            “That’s okay,” Sam said, without looking at Dean. “I never really fit in.”

            Dean wanted to say, that’s what I’m sorry about. That you didn’t get to escape. Maybe if he’d been there, he could have given Sam a chance. Probably not. Moving around all the time, killing things. Maybe Sam never really had a chance. But Sam would get icy if he thought Dean was pitying him and it was nice to have a little time without Terminator Sam.

            “I’m thinking—I’m sorry we’re gonna miss it,” Dean said.

            “Miss what?” Sam asked.

            “How many chances are you going to have to see your own funeral?” He smirked at Sam and for a moment Sam just looked at him—and then he split into a deep, full-bellied laugh.

            “We should send flowers,” Dean said.

 

            They’d been driving for six hours and Dean’s stomach was rumbling. He wasn’t going to say anything. He wasn't going to suggest stopping for food. Sam’s call this time. But they were going to have to stop for gas before long. He’d get something at the gas station.

            What the fuck was it with Sam and food? Sam had always slept for shit, even as a little kid but the food stuff was new. Sure, Sam had been kind of picky eater, but like little kids were picky eaters. He’d eaten pretty much all the things kids ate. He’d loved snacks. He’d eaten shit like grocery store brand boxed mac’ n cheese with hotdogs chopped in it, almost any kind of canned soup, frozen pot pies, fast foods, anything off the kid’s menu.

            Dean had felt like a shit when Sam said he always picked where to eat but as the hours and miles rolled on he was beginning to realize that was because Sam apparently never saw the need to eat.

            Or maybe this was another test.

            Screw you, Sam, he thought, Dean Winchester cannot be starved out.

            “Gonna need gas soon,” Dean said.

            Sam glanced at his watch. “Wow, yeah, we should probably get something to eat.”

            Okay, not a test.

            “What kind of place do you want to eat at?” Dean asked. “I’ll keep an eye out.”

            “I don’t care,” Sam said.

            No. No way. “You don’t get to do that. Not after the epic bitch-out of St. Louis.” Dean glanced over and Sam at least had the grace to look embarrassed. “Look,” Dean said. “I don’t like finding out I’m an asshole, okay? So I’m trying not to be an asshole here.”

            “I’m sorry,” Sam said. “I was just, you know…I shouldn’t have…”

            Dean let the silence ride. When it was clear that Sam wasn’t going to say anything else he said, “That may have been the lamest apology on record.”

            “Yeah,” Sam said softly.

            “So what did you do when you were driving solo?”

            “Grocery store stuff. Take out salads. Power bars.” Sam’s voice was so, so quiet.

            “Bourbon,” Dean supplied.

            That got a little laugh. “I didn’t know we were talking about medication.”

            “Okay, we’ll find a grocery store. And I’ll go through a drive through.”

            “You don’t have to do that,” Sam said.

            “Why the hell not?” Dean said. “You were right. You should get to decide how we eat, too.” They were in a town and the upcoming exit looked like good grocery store territory. There was an Olive Garden and a Chili’s and a Gap and a Hobby Lobby. Dean eased into the exit lane. He hated interstates. After this, back to highways. Sam still hadn’t said anything. “Why not, Sam?”

            “I got…a little weird about eating…when I was in high school.”

            Dean thought Sam was a little weird about a lot of stuff but he wasn’t sure what Sam meant here. He thought Sam might have been done. Sam sure wasn’t big on confessions.

            “I got a little chubby in middle school. John didn’t like it.”

            Dean’s stomach did a fluttery-nervous thing. He didn’t look at Sam, just took the exit. Didn’t say anything.

            “He made me run more. You know, more training and shit. And I started eating less. Drinking water when I was hungry. I…I dunno, I don’t like eating all that much.”

            “Like how much?” Dean asked.

            “Like kind of crazy for awhile,” Sam said.

            Dean couldn’t help it, he glanced at Sam. Sam quirked an eyebrow at him. “Oh yeah, once I figured out I was fucked up, I did all the research.”

            Of course. What did that mean, ‘all fucked up? Did all the research?’ Dean didn’t want to think about the name of what Sam had researched. Turn right at the light, cruise towards the grocery. “So, what did you figure out?”

            “That the map is not the territory. What the hell, Dean. For awhile I was fucked up about it and I knew I was fucked up but I didn’t know what to do about it.”

            Turn right into the grocery store parking lot. Dean looked for a parking spot far away from the door. Someplace to just park.

            “Jess, uh, she was the first person I told,” Sam said. “I…it doesn’t matter. Um...you’re the second. She helped me. She sort of engineered this whole way to help me figure out how I could learn to eat okay again. But when Jess died, it got harder. Turns out a lot of people lose weight when they…when someone dies, so I figure I’ll just get my shit together. But you don’t have to suffer because of me.”

            Dean looked over. Sam was studying his hands.

            “Okay,” Dean said. “So what would Jess have done now?”

            Sam started blinking, hard. “We…we started with smoothies,” he said and his voice cracked. “Because it was kind of not like really eating.”

            Dean put his arm around his little brother’s broad shoulders and pulled him over. “Okay,” he said. “That’s what we’ll do.”


End file.
